eGPU through Thunderbolt 3 isn't being recognized

Gotcha. When I boot it up with the eGPU connected, the laptop still starts up no problem. I hear the eGPU’s internal fan running and see it charging my laptop, but the NVIDIA GPU itself doesn’t run.

With my non-Framework laptop, I did the following:

  1. Started up the laptop and logged in
  2. Wait about 5 minutes for everything to load in the background
  3. Connect the power cord to the eGPU
  4. Connect the Thunderbold cable to the laptop’s Thunderbolt port

Then everything turned on as expected. When I connect it all immediately after the laptop loaded to the home screen, the GPU would show a flash and then turn off. It seemed that letting the PC run whatever background processes for a few minutes, and then connecting, that worked. I would sometimes disconnect and reconnect until it worked.

When I tried to do the same on the Framework, no dice. I see the GPU power up the light, but it goes away. I tried all of the modular ports just to be sure. There are a few posts where people have their Framework run with their eGPU. I feel like I’m close, but missing something, perhaps a BIOS setting…

Also, according to one of the Reddit comments, the PSU should be enough to support the GPU. They said:

If you run it at the same time as your PC, maybe you are running out of power for a moment?

The 1080 (170w) and 2070 (180w) are from the same series, so the 3060 (180w) could work.

The Gaming Box is a Flex power supply, so there isn’t much variety…

It seems that the 3060 needs a minimum of 180W? That’s how I understood it.